The RIC Sky went into the National Wheelchair
Basketball Tournament seeded 5th based on their finish in last year's
Nationals. However, since that Nationals, they lost 4 women to the new
women's team at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, one woman moved away
from Chicago and one decided to take a year off to concentrate on school.
Because of this the Sky lost 3 of their starters and one of their "first off
the bench" people from last season. A new coach was leading the team this
season.

The first game was played on Wednesday at 11:50
AM. This game was against the Sky's perennial rivals, the Dallas Lady
Mavericks who acquired the Sky's starting player that moved away from
Chicago. With the added firepower she brought to their team and the
Sky's loss of her as a player, they won this game by a score of 59 to 36. The
next game that day was against the Steel City Starz which the Sky won easily
56 to 37. The last game of the day versus the Shepherd Lady Stealers was
scheduled to start at 9:45 PM. However, after a long day of games scheduled
every 1 1/2 hours, the last game actually started at 10:20. It was an
exciting nip and tuck game that was forced into overtime by a referee that had
worked too many games in one day. A Shepherd player was fouled as she
received a pass and the game ending buzzer was sounding. The referee called
the foul as in the act of shooting and gave 2 free throws to the Shepherd
player. She made both baskets throwing the game into overtime. With 8
seconds on the clock, Sue Haddick
made a basket putting the Sky in the lead by one point. However, RIC coach
Dave Radbel had been calling for a
timeout some seconds earlier and the referee had not been listening. Finally
he realized that he had heard a call for a timeout and whistled for the
timeout and disallowed the basket. The Sky protested the call to no avail.
With 8 seconds on the clock, there was time to toss the ball in but the Sky
was not able to get a good position for the shot and lost the game 45 to 44.
The game was over at 11:30 and the very tired and disappointed Sky were set to
play for seventh place at 10:00 AM the next day. The Sky easily won the game
versus the Denver Lady Nuggets 47 to 36.